Short or long sentences?

General

Making sentences shorter or longer can make them:

  • More effective

  • More informative

  • More satisfying

Long sentences

  • Serves the needs of both writer and reader. The writer by compelling him to examine his thought, the reader by letting him into the writer’s thought

  • Long sentences are writer oriented

  • Cumbersome to follow, but the long sentence clearly shows the connection between the base clause and additional clauses/phrase (maybe better than separated in the paragraph)

  • Could use less words to condense the same idea, than several short sentences, with the tradeoff of cognitive load

  • Effective to describe a process

  • Useful to follow something that unfolds in time

  • A flow that unfolds surprising.